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Analytics in Ukraine’s IT Industry, a Study
The most important skill for an analyst is a deep understanding of a business or product; only about 20% of analysts do not use programming languages; a quarter of respondents earn from $2,000 to $3,000 per month. The AIN.UA* team conducted a study on the portrait of data analysts in the IT industry in Ukraine
The survey was anonymous and was distributed through the AIN.UA website and social media, direct emails to companies, promotions tailored to the target audience on FB, as well as dedicated groups and Telegram channels (#AnalyticsTips, “IT Events & Vacancies”).
The survey comprised 30 questions divided into 5 sections. Separate sections allowed us to construct a general socio-demographic portrait, obtain data on education, work experience and current employment, understand the respondents' values and perception of the market, obtain data on skills and tools for work, estimate the level of salaries in the industry and determine preferences in professional content. 99 respondents completed the survey.
We were able to implement this study thanks to the support of the co-founding company Genesis, which acted as a partner of the study. Genesis had no influence whatsoever on the research results.
Genesis is a Ukrainian co-founding IT company that builds global technology businesses in collaboration with the finest entrepreneurs from Central and Eastern Europe.
It is one of the biggest publishers of mobile apps in the world, with over 400 million downloads and millions of monthly users.
Genesis is one of the best technology teams in CEE. The company has been recognized as the best wartime employer (2023) and Lovemark for employees (2024) by Forbes. The company is regularly ranked number one by DOU and E&Y.
A data analyst is a distinct category of specialists within the IT industry, with teams consisting primarily of managers and engineers. Analysts are people who are interested in solving problems related to numbers and data. And if, for some reason, a person with such a mindset doesn't become a scientist, data analytics is a great way to pursue your love of data and make good money.
These are specialists who combine knowledge of working with data and understanding of the business domain. The main goal of their work is to support business decision-making and find growth points for a business or product. In areas such as finance, investment, and real estate, where management was unable to simultaneously analyze all the information coming in, the need for analysts was evident even before the advent of IT. Because IT is also very complex, IT managers lack the time, knowledge, and skills to make these decisions on their own. Therefore, they hire specially trained people, such as analysts.
Workplace, Team Composition, Salary
What company
do
work for?
The majority (70.8%) of respondents work in product companies. 21.2% work in outsourcing, and 4.4% in outstaffing. Almost 4% of respondents indicated other modes, including freelancing and consulting.
What domain
do you
work in?
Nearly 19% of respondents work in E-commerce. 16.1% of respondents work in Marketing and Retail/FMCG/Logistics. Another 15.1% each indicated Dating and FinTech as their work domains.
The smallest number of respondents work in AgroTech and MedTech (2% each). Other areas mentioned by the respondents include Ride-hailing, Business & Utilities, DeepTech, ESC / Energy Health & Fitness.
Do you
work alone
or as
part of a team?
Analysts work largely in small teams or alone. 33.3% of respondents work in teams of up to 5 people. 25.2% of respondents work alone, without a team. 15.2% of respondents work in teams of 5 to 10 analysts.
16.2% of respondents work in teams of more than 10 people. Another 10% refrained from answering.
What is the composition
of your team?
32.6% of respondents work in cross-functional teams. Almost the same number of respondents work alone and in teams with other analysts (29.1% each).
Another 9.3% of respondents work as a dedicated analyst in one of the business streams.
What problems do you
face at your current
workplace?
Only 30.3% of respondents provided answers about what they lack at their current workplace. The question was open-ended, so during the analysis, the responses were clustered according to the main shortcomings indicated in the survey.
The following clusters were identified: lack of interaction with management; lack of colleagues in the analytics team (due to a likely higher workload for other specialists, etc.); lack of development in projects or the company as a whole; as well as dissatisfaction with working conditions (office, work model, schedule, salary, etc.) and the framework or business model.
Most respondents are dissatisfied with their working conditions (33.3%). The next most common problem was the lack of professional development (26.7% of responses). 20% of respondents are not satisfied with the current framework or business model. Teammates and interaction with management are unsatisfactory for 13% and 17% of respondents, respectively.
What are the benefits
of your current workplace,
what do you value most?
Some 44.4% of respondents said they liked their current workplace. This question, like the previous one, was also open-ended, and in the course of the analysis, these responses were also clustered according to the main positive aspects cited by the respondents.
Most respondents cited the team and colleagues as a positive aspect (36.3%). Another 27.3% of respondents said they were satisfied with their working conditions. 23% of respondents said that they like the product, project, or tasks at the company. The company's framework or business model was mentioned as a positive aspect in 18% of responses, and the corporate culture in 13.6%. Professional development was cited by the fewest respondents (11%).
What do you look
for when choosing
a new workplace?
When choosing a workplace, analysts value challenging tasks the most. This was stated by almost 66% of the 91 respondents who answered this question. Other important factors are salary (61.5%), team (56%), and professional growth prospects (53.8%).
The fewest respondents said that the benefits package was important to them (22% of responses).
What is your salary?
Among those who answered, 26% indicated a salary bracket of $2,001-$3,000. The second most common was the $1,000-$1,500 salary bracket, indicated by 20% of respondents. Salaries of less than $1,000 were reported by 15%, and over $6,000 by 5%.
What is the correlation
between salary and
years of experience?
Clearly, analyst salaries are directly related to work experience. Nearly half (47%) of all specialists with 1-3 years of work experience indicated a salary of up to $1,500. Analysts with 4-6 years of experience (46%) typically already have a salary in the range of $1,500-$3,000, and among specialists with 7+ years of experience, the most common (33%) is the level of compensation of $2,000-$3,000 or higher. Among the latter category of analysts, there are 4% who have a salary of over $6,000.
Interestingly, there are about 10% of specialists with 1 to 3 years of analytics experience who reported a salary of $3,000-$6,000. However, this is most likely due to the fact that the question about years of experience only referred to work in IT analytics. Respondents may have much more experience working on other projects or in other teams.
Work Model, Tasks, and Tools for Analysts
Do you work
remotely
or in the office?
In terms of work model, the majority of Ukrainian analysts (42.4%) work remotely. A third of respondents, or 33.3%, said they have a hybrid work model, combining the ability to work in the office or remotely. Another 24.2% primarily work in the office.
What kind
of work
tasks do you do?
41.41% of respondents answered an open-ended question about the tasks and responsibilities they have at their current workplace. The responses were clustered by the largest number of repetitive tasks and tasks in one area.
Finally, the most popular task for analysts is reporting, as evidenced by 39% of respondents. Other common tasks include data processing and structuring (29.3%), market research (27%), and product analytics (24.4%).
The least common tasks are business and internal process analysis (12.2% each) and automation (7.3%). In addition, 24.4% reported other responsibilities, including prototyping, development, and other tasks not related to analytics
In the Genesis ecosystem, companies are largely built to make data-driven decisions. They have analysts embedded in the structure as close to the business and decision-making as possible. In such conditions, an analyst has the opportunity to grow quickly, as opposed to structures where there is a dedicated team of analysts who receives tasks from outside.
More specifically, our analysts evaluate the effectiveness of new user acquisition, design and evaluate A/B tests, optimize the work of support and Trust and Security departments, evaluate the efficiency of the payment process, and compile and calculate business or product metrics. Investigate cases of atypical metrics deviations,” Oleksandr Marynkin, Genesis Analytics Officer, says.
What analytic
tools do you use?
Among the most common tools used by analysts, four tools stand out:
Excel (used by 61.7% of respondents);
Tableau (chosen by 47.9% of respondents);
Power BI (24.5%);
Looker Studio (22.3%).
About 18% of respondents said they use other BI systems and tools, without specifying which ones. 6.4% of respondents said they do not use any tools. 4.3% use Google Sheets and other GSuite services. 8.5% said they use internal company systems, as well as some other systems such as Apache Superset, IBM SPSS Statistics, Power Query, Shiny R, Figma, Jira, Confluence.
What programming
languages do you use?
As for the programming languages and tools used by analysts in their work, SQL queries prevail (used by 72.8% of respondents), followed by Python (selected by 48.9% of analysts), and R (used by 14.1% of analysts).
Furthermore, 4.35% of respondents indicated that they use JQL, PHP, App scripts, or VBA in their work. Another 7.6% use other languages, without specifying which ones. In addition, 19.6% of respondents indicated that they do not write any queries or scripts at all.
What platforms do
you use in your work?
Nearly 90% of respondents answered the question about the use of platforms in the work of an analyst. Of those, 40% said they primarily use web-based platforms in their work, while 34.8% use both web-based platforms and apps.
21.3% of analysts preferred apps. Another 3.3% reported using a variety of platforms and software, including Snowflake, Python, PostgreSQL, Gitlab, and Internal BI.
In your opinion,
what skills are
important
for an analyst?
When asked what skills, knowledge or approaches are most important for you in your current position, the majority chose a deep understanding of the company's business or product, as well as the ability to think critically, avoid cognitive biases, and explain complex concepts clearly. These options were selected by 73% and 72% of respondents, respectively.
More than half of the respondents (63%) also believe that it is important to understand specific analytical approaches (e.g., how to evaluate A/B tests, conduct cohort analysis, build a user-friendly dashboard, etc.).
Another 54% of respondents found communication and collaboration skills useful. 47% of respondents agreed that proficiency in BI tools and programming languages (R, Python, and/or SQL) is also an integral part of an analyst's work.
One-third of analysts (36%) believe that the ability to get a task done quickly and people and/or process management skills are also useful for specialists. Only 28% of respondents said that it is important for an analyst to have knowledge of mathematics, statistics, and probability theory.
Portrait of Respondents
What city do
you live in?
According to the study, an average analyst lives in big cities (mostly Kyiv), works remotely, and has up to 5 years of experience. Such specialists perform various analytical tasks without a significant emphasis on one area of activity, and most often enter the domain from other IT areas.
Nearly 64% of respondents live in Kyiv, 6.2% in Lviv, 5.2% in Dnipro, 4.1% in Odesa, and 2.1% in Kharkiv. 15.5% of respondents live abroad. Another 3% live in Chernivtsi, Vinnytsia, and Brovary.
What is
your experience
as an analyst?
Most of the surveyed analysts have up to 5 years of experience. More than half (55.6%) have 1 to 3 years of experience. 24.2% have 4 to 6 years of experience. And only 20.2% indicated 7 to 10 years of experience as an analyst.
What is the
focus of your
analytical
work?
Almost half of the respondents (47.5%) are engaged in various analytical tasks, without a substantial dominance of any one area of activity. Product analytics prevails in 20.2% of respondents. 16.2% of respondents work with marketing research and analytics.
About 9% are engaged in data analysis in other business domains, 6.1% in business intelligence. Only 1% of respondents are involved in financial analysis.
Specialists' background: what experience do they have, where did they study?
What domain
did you
have
previous
experience in?
66.67% of respondents answered the question about their previous experience. The previous work experience of Ukrainian analysts is quite diverse, with only 7.6% of respondents having no previous work experience and the analyst position being their first job.
Of the rest, the majority (22.7%) came to analytics from other IT professions. 7.6% of respondents had previously worked in advertising, and the same number of respondents came to analytics from accounting and auditing.
More than 18% in roughly equal proportion had previous experience in trade and sales (6.1%), marketing (6.1%), and banking (6.1%). Fewer respondents selected education (4.5%), industry (4.5%), and construction (4.5%).
The remaining 12% have previously worked in management, medicine, journalism, and non-IT analytics (3% each), as well as insurance and logistics (1.5% each). 7.6% of respondents have other work experience not related to the above areas.
What was
the focus
of your
previous IT experience?
One third of respondents did not specify the focus of their previous IT activities. Among those who provided such information, overall, the majority of respondents had formerly worked in entry-level IT positions to start their career:
testers (13.3%);
data processing engineers (13.3%);
web developers (13.3%);
game developers (6.7%);
recruiters (6.7%);
designers (6.7%);
system administrators (6.7%).
How did you master
your specialization?
Where did you study?
The general statistics show an almost even split between those who studied analytics on their own and those who studied in higher education institutions. More than half of the respondents studied analytics on their own (57.6%), and 53.5% in a higher education institution. 46.5% of respondents indicated that they learned analytics on the job at a company, and the remaining 33% studied by taking specialized courses.
In addition, 53% of respondents have a university degree in their specialization, while the remaining 46.5% did not attend university but studied on their own, through courses or on the job.
Ukrainian higher education institutions still do not have such a major as data analytics. The Institute for Applied Systems Analysis of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute is the closest to the target, but their graduates are still not fully qualified specialists that businesses need. There are also no high-quality commercial courses that would provide a proper foundation for an aspiring data analyst, only programs in specific stack disciplines, such as SQL, Python, or Tableau. As a result, most data analysts have no better way than self-study or mastering the necessary skills on the job,” Oleksandr Marynkin, Genesis Analytics Officer, says.
If you studied at an
institution of
higher education,
where exactly?
The question about the institution of higher education was answered by 44.4% of analysts. The most popular among them were:
Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, which was attended by 25% of respondents;
Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, attended by 18.2%;
6.8% studied at the Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics;
4.5% of respondents each studied at the Ukrainian Catholic University, the National University of Food Technologies, the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and KSE, respectively;
27% of respondents chose other educational institutions, including Vlerick Business School, University of Winnipeg, Sumy State University, National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, National Technical University "Dnipro Polytechnic", Interregional Academy of Personnel Management, Imperial College London, Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University, and others.
If you took
courses,
what kind?
Of those who indicated courses as their mode of learning, the majority took the following courses:
Genesis Analytics School (16.2%);
Genesis School of Digital Business (2.7%);
13.5% studied at LABA, including the Robot Dreams program;
Google Data Analytics, DataCamp, and Coursera analytics courses were completed by 8.1% of respondents each;
In addition, 5.4% of the respondents took SQL courses, Karpov.Courses, ITEA, Hillel IT School, and Maksym Gapchuk's courses;
GoIT, Webpromo, SkillsUp, Skillfactory, IAmPM, A-level, Pro Аnalytics, Activ Financial Academy, Dan IT, Kursor, Prometheus, edX, Kaggle, Udemy, and Go Practice simulator courses were completed by 2.7% of respondents each.
Approximately 21.6% of respondents took other courses, but did not specify which ones.
The Genesis Analytics School is a free two-month intensive program with a rigorous selection process for participants who may not have work experience but have the potential to be good analysts. This selection approach allows the program to provide information in a rich, concise, and fast way to get participants to the junior analyst position. After this practice, almost everyone who wanted to get a job at Genesis was able to do so successfully. Genesis Analytics School is currently being redesigned: the course will include even more practical tasks and cases to help graduates become even more job-ready,” Oleksandr Marynkin, Genesis Analytics Officer, says.
What/who
analysts
watch/read?
Out of 27 responses to the question of what the content analysts watch and read, the most frequently mentioned were Dou.ua, Youtube channels, course materials, and content by Paul Levchuk, as Head of Analytics & Growth at Dorian, a developer of no-code platforms. Paul Levchuk publishes his articles on Linkedin and Medium.
Market perception
Are you planning
to change
your workplace
in the
next year?
The majority of respondents (46%) will not change their workplace in the next year. 19% plan to do so, and another 35% of respondents did not provide a clear answer or did not answer at all.
What job
search
platforms
do you use?
Among job search platforms, job boards turned out to be the most popular. They are used by 62% of respondents. Social media was the next most popular (47.1%).
Another 40.2% have found or plan to find a job through acquaintances. The fewest people use TG channels and groups (18.4%).
In your opinion,
which domain
presents the
most interesting
tasks for an
analyst?
The majority (52%) indicated that the most interesting tasks are in the domain of EdTech.
Another 40.5% prefer E-commerce, 38% — Entertainment, and 36.9% — Marketing and Military Tech.
The Media and Adult sectors were the least interesting for respondents, with 16.7% and 15.5% respectively.
Gambling was mentioned as interesting by 24% of respondents, while in the open question about companies with interesting challenges, this domain was mentioned in 3 out of 19 answers, which is more often than Military Tech.
In an open-ended question about the companies with the most interesting tasks for analysts, respondents most often mentioned Genesis and SKELAR. Both are startup development ecosystems.
Analysts want to work in companies where they are needed. In business models where it is profitable and where they can add more value. The key factors are a data-centric company culture, a business niche where analytics can be of great value, and the size of the analytics team. It is this combination that makes work interesting for specialists,” Oleksandr Marynkin, Genesis Analytics Officer, says.
In which domain
do you
expect the
highest salary
for an analyst?
Respondents expect the highest salaries for analysts in Gambling, as stated by 53.7% of 93 respondents. Other domains with the highest salaries were Adult (48.3%) and Betting (47.3%).
The lowest expectations of high salaries are in Retail / FMGC / Logistics, Military Tech, MedTech, and AgroTech, with each industry receiving less than 10% of responses.
In which domain
do you
expect the
best conditions
for an analyst?
Respondents expect the best conditions for analysts in Gambling (40.4%). A significant portion of respondents also believes that the best conditions are currently offered in E-commerce (36.3%), Betting, and Fintech (34.3% each). The lowest number of respondents expects good conditions in Telecommunications, ArgoTech, and Military Tech, each of which is mentioned in less than 10% of responses.
Nearly 19% of respondents answered the open-ended question about companies with the best conditions for analysts. Of those, Grammarly and Genesis were the most frequently mentioned.
